Pro-Russia hacker group NoName launched a DDoS attack on Canadian airports causing severe disruptions

Pro-Russia hacker group NoName is suspected to have launched a cyberattack that caused border checkpoint outages at several Canadian airports.

A massive DDoS cyber attack, likely carried out by Pro-Russia hacker group NoName, severely impacted operations at several Canadian airports last week, reported Recorded Future News.

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) was able to mitigate the attack after a few hours.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) confirmed that the attack impacted check-in kiosks and electronic gates at airports.

The cyber attack caused delays in the processing of arrivals for more than an hour at border checkpoints across the country.

“The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) finally confirmed on Tuesday that “connectivity issues that affected kiosks and electronic gates at airports” are the result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.” reported the Canadian media outlet La Presse.

“However, the Russian-speaking gang specializing in this type of hacking NoName057 precisely targeted the federal agency, according to its Telegram page. “We are working closely with our partners to assess the situation and investigate. The safety of Canadians and travelers is the CBSA’s top priority and no personal information has been disclosed following these attacks,” said a spokesperson for the organization, Maria Ladouceur.”

The Canadian authorities are investigating the security incident with the help of its partners. At this time there is no evidence of a data breach.

“The safety and security of Canadians and travelers is the CBSA’s top priority,” said CBSA. “No personal information has been disclosed following these attacks.”

A few days ago, the Pro-Russia group NoName057(16) announced to have launched DDoS attacks on several Canadian organizations, including CBSA, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, and the Senate. However CBSA has not attributed the DDoS attack to the Pro-Russia group.

NoName claims that the DDoS campaign is the response of the group to support offered by Canada to Ukraine.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security published an alert warning of a Distributed Denial of Service campaign targeting multiple Canadian sectors.

“Since 13 September 2023, the Cyber Centre has been aware and responding to reports of several distributed denial of service (DDoS ) campaigns targeting multiple levels within the Government of Canada, as well as the financial and transportation sectors.” reads the alert. “This Alert is being published to raise awareness of these campaigns, to highlight the potential impact to government services and to provide guidance for organizations who may be targeted by malicious activity.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Noname)